A study of high school students in Massachusetts found that youth were no more likely to use marijuana after legalization. However, more students perceived their parents as cannabis consumers after the policy change.
“No statistically significant differences were found in the prevalence of past-30 day cannabis use before and after legalization among adolescents,” says the report, published in the journal Clinical Therapeutics. The proportion of students who reported perceiving that a parent uses cannabis, however, rose from 18% to 24% after legalization.
The findings stem from two waves of survey data collected from two eastern Massachusetts high schools in 2016 and 2018. The earlier survey occurred before legalization, while the latter happened after legalization went into effect before retail sales began. In 2016, 82 percent of respondents reported that their perception was that their parents did not use marijuana. By 2018, that number had fallen slightly to 76 percent.
